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Gov. Jindal's landmark education reform law faces day in court: John Maginnis

Rep. Pat Smith (center in red) rallies teachers in the hallway and lets them know how to proceed after many were asked to leave the committee room because of overcrowding during the House Education Committee hearing in March on Gov. Bobby Jindal's education reform package.
(Photo by Ted Jackson, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune)

"Like other governors before him, Jindal may find that his power and control at the Capitol end at the federal courthouse steps."

In what may have been the apex of Gov. Bobby Jindal's power and influence over the Legislature, his team pressed nonstop to push through a far-reaching package of education bills in the first three weeks of this year's session, which is considered warp speed at the Capitol.

The centerpiece of those laws, establishing a statewide voucher program by which more than 5,000 public school students are having their tuition paid to attend private and church schools, faces challenges in state and federal courts. A ruling handed down this week does not bode well for Jindal's new order for education, while it might also change the course of schooling, again, for many of those 5,000 children.

Trial is scheduled to start today in state district court in Baton Rouge on a lawsuit brought by two major teachers unions and 43 local school boards, who are challenging the constitutionality of how the vouchers are funded and how the law was passed.

But earlier this week, the voucher law was dealt a heavy blow when a federal judge ruled that it, along with a law revamping teacher tenure, conflicts with his school desegregation order in Tangipahoa Parish. While his ruling only affects one parish, dozens of other school districts under desegregation orders in Louisiana could be on their way to federal court soon to raise the same point.

There are multiple issues in both suits, but central to both are the school boards' claims that the state is illegally diverting local tax dollars, dedicated to public schools, to pay to send students to private schools. The suit in state court claims that practice violates the state Constitution. In the Tangipahoa case in federal court, the School Board argues that using local funds for vouchers makes it impossible for it to comply with the judge's order mandating new school construction and magnet school programs.

In both cases, the state's response is pretty simple: There are no local funds in vouchers.

With more than $40 million running through the voucher program, it would not seem hard to sort out where the money comes from. Yet that debate has raged from the time the voucher bill was filed.

The Legislature supports public education through the Minimum Foundation Program, which allocates $3.3 billion in state money to 69 school districts according to a complex formula, based largely on enrollment and the taxable wealth in each district. So the state portion for each district varies according to how much each parish or municipality is capable of raising for its local share.

The Jindal administration realized from the start that to use local tax dollars to finance vouchers would not only raise a constitutional issue but also create a major political obstacle in the Legislature.

So, as the bill was written, the state deducts from what the Minimum Foundation Program pays to local districts an amount nearly equal to the state portion and what the districts raise locally. Technically, only state dollars go to vouchers, but the school boards argue that in reality they are being docked for both the state and local portions for each voucher student.

The state's lawyers did not seem overly concerned when the school boards and teachers unions sued, since, normally, state courts give wide latitude to the will of the Legislature and the governor.

Those concerns heightened, however, when U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle ordered the state Department of Education into federal court to show that it was not getting in the way of his desegregation order.

At Monday's hearing, apparently he did not buy the semantics of the state's argument that no local money was being used. Instead, the judge agreed with the local school district's position that the voucher law, however it is worded, results in the School Board having less local money to carry out the judge's order in the 47-year-old desegregation case.

The state, of course, can appeal, but it may soon have to fight on new fronts. Since many of the school boards suing the state also are under desegregation orders, they no doubt will go into federal court soon to argue that the voucher and tenure laws interfere with their compliance efforts too, thus threatening to make hash of the governor's new order for education. Like other governors before him, Jindal may find that his power and control at the Capitol end at the federal courthouse steps.

John Maginnis is an independent journalist covering Louisiana politics. He can be reached at www.LaPolitics.com.